


You're Never Gonna Fit In Much, Kid (High School AU)

by xblack_paradex



Category: Gerard Way and the Hormones, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Breakups, Brendon Urie - Freeform, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Frerard, MCR, Mikey Way - Freeform, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Original Character(s), Panic! at the Disco - Freeform, Ryan Ross - Freeform, Spencer Smith - Freeform, bob bryar - Freeform, frank iero - Freeform, gerard way - Freeform, my chemical romance - Freeform, no smut sorry, patd - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xblack_paradex/pseuds/xblack_paradex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school- arguably one of the most confusing times of a person's life. With the pressure of college applications, getting jobs, driving cars, getting dates, a new girl in school, maintaining mediocre grades, under-funded arts programs, impractical music career paths and having to see certain ex-boyfriends every day, Frank Iero, Gerard Way, Ray Toro, Mikey Way, Bob Bryar, Brendon Urie, Spencer Smith, and Ryan Ross are going to have to face the truth- they're never gonna make it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Never Gonna Fit In Much, Kid (High School AU)

**Author's Note:**

> (A/n) Sorry for the shitty description. So, this is something different. Really different. I don’t think I’ve ever made a fic quite like this one before. I’ll explain why this is so different- one, there will be slash, which I have never written before! Two, it’s a crossover fic between two bands. Three, it’s a chapter story, which I never do. I’ve been anticipating writing this for a while now, and I hope you guys like this fic!! Just for clarification, this is a crossover fic between Panic! at the Disco and My Chemical Romance, and Scarlett and Lila are my own OC's. Without further ado, I welcome you to a world of high school AU band madness…

On account that she’d done so poorly in math her freshman and sophomore years, and because she sort of maybe dropped her Algebra class before could finish the course, Scarlett Daye was spending her first morning in her new high school surrounded by freshmen.  
She hadn’t remembered being such a shrimp when she was around their age, but these kids were tiny. Minuscule, puny, probably fun to beat up. Had she been that short?  
One of the kids who sat next to her probably hardly stood over five feet. She wished she’d done a little better in her classes so she’d be with people who didn’t make her feel like the Green Giant. Now, though, she had no choice. Her ass was stuck in freshman math.  
“Hey,” whispered one of the boys who sat by her. She flipped over her shoulder to face the boy who’d spoken, who was directly behind, perched at his desk with impeccable posture.  
She replied cautiously. “Hi?”  
“You’re new.” This particular boy had scruffy brown hair and a lip ring. While small, he was kind of cute, in a freshman way.  
“Yes,” she remarked slowly.  
“You’re a junior.”  
“How could you tell?”  
“I could hear Ms. LeMar talking about the new junior yesterday. I sorta assumed it was you-“  
“Yeah, well, you assumed right.”  
“Anyway, I’m Frank. I just wanted to say hi. That’s my best friend-“ he gestured to a boy who was a little bit taller, but not by much, with light brown hair falling in his face. He was immersed in a splayed comic book on his lap, and was at the desk next to his. “-Mikey.”  
Scarlett pointed to the book. “You guys read comics?” Finally, people with non-jock interests around here. Everyone seemed to be some kind of sports fanatic around the place, and almost everyone gave her an cold, unwelcoming vibe. She figured it was because she hadn’t been popular at her last school, so why would she be popular here?  
“Um, mostly Mikey. He takes after his brother.”  
Mikey now glanced from his pages, brown eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses. “Yeah, only his taste in comics suck.” He noticed Scarlett there and broke into a smile. “You’re the new junior!”  
“Indeed,” she said, grinning. This time she wasn’t quite as weirded out by the sudden freshman attention. She was glad there was somebody being nice, despite the “someone” being a couple of short ninth graders.  
“Hey, um, we can talk more about comics at lunch,” said Frank, eyes darting nervously to Mikey. He was seizing his chance to draw in a new member of the friend group. God knew it’d been a while since they were ever introduced anybody new to hang around with. Besides, they had never had a girl in their friend group before. “If you want,” he added quickly. Mikey nodded his agreement at a rapid speed.  
Scarlett smiled again and jutted her chin upwards, shoulder-length wavy black hair bobbing against the sides of her face and brushing her cheeks. “Yeah, I think that’d be fun. It’s not like I’d have anywhere else to sit, anyway.”  
Scarlett was a chubby girl who was a little awkward and self-conscious, but once she met new people who took the time to get to know her, she was as personable as someone could be. She was glad she’d made potential friends already in first period- it’d make school a lot easier knowing at least a few people.  
“You guys have fifth off for lunch?”  
“Yeah, we all do,” said Frank excitedly. “We’re lucky we all got the same period.”  
“We, uh, sit outside,” interjected Mikey. “You won’t miss us.”  
She wasn’t sure about how she felt hanging out with all freshmen her whole lunch period. At her old high school, she hung out with mostly seniors, the ones who always cut class and got into trouble. That was partially one of the reasons her mother decided to move the Daye family from New York city to New Jersey. Of course it was a culture shock, moving from edgy urban territory to the simple suburbs, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Her family hated the city, and how toxic of an environment it was for a “developing adolescent”, as her mother had put it. It wasn’t her fault her friends got her addicted to cigarettes and she smoked weed every now and then- she barely even did those things, and it was hardly a big deal to her, but negotiating with her parents was no use. Moving to New Jersey and getting a “wholesome education” was final. She supposed some of this was maybe her fault, but it was too late to confess her wrongdoings now.  
Maybe hanging out with freshmen would be cool. Fun, even. She’d get a new perspective on life she never had before. They were tiny, but they seemed smart, and seemed to have enough mutual interests. She decided, from then on, she’d give the unknown a chance.

* 

Frank had finished telling the rest of the boys about the New Girl when they caught sight of her in her black dress and tights, despite it still being warm out. It was early October- she’d only enrolled a month after school started.  
Gerard sat on the shady table, eating a salad or something along with a cup of coffee, talking animatedly to Ray, a grade above, who was high off his ass as usual and sitting in the sunniest spot. Bob was off somewhere, smoking his noon cigarette like he did every day before he joined his friends. Ryan was quietly writing something down in his notebook and Frank was focused on Mikey.  
It was weird being such great friends with Mikey after what had happened with Gerard. It wasn’t like anything horrible happened, but everything was awkward now, the two condemned to avoid eye contact and make forced small talk in the halls. Mikey knew about their tension and what had happened over the summer, but he knew that he couldn’t let it destroy their friendships. Mikey and Frank had always been best friends, and Gerard was close with them as well- now, though, it seemed he had nothing to say to Frank at all. It made him sad to know the guy he’d liked so much no longer liked him, not even an ounce. He knew that the majority of Gerard’s “ignoring” him was simply Frank avoiding any sort of conversation with him, but that was just how he coped with situations. He tried to block that out of his mind.  
“Hey,” said Scarlett shyly as she approached the group, brushing hair from her eyes. She wore a pair of dark tinted sunglasses, and slid them down her nose to properly survey the group of boys who were hanging out at the table. For a split second, she seemed surprised.  
All eyes at the table fell to her. She did a small, nearly nonexistent wave before she spoke again. “I’m Scarlett. Mikey and Frank told me I could hang out with you guys, since I’m new here and everything.”  
Gerard smiled, big and cartoonish, before sipping his coffee.  
“Oh, yeah,” said Mikey. “Scarlett, that’s my older brother I told you about. The one with the shitty taste in comics. He’s in your grade.”  
Gerard rolled his eyes and reached his hand out just far enough to flick his brother’s ear. It must’ve stung, because Mikey let out an anguished cry. “Did he tell you that he still likes to read-“  
“-Gerard!”  
“-You didn’t let me finish,” eyelash-rimmed hazel eyes met Scarlett’s dark brown ones, glinting mischievously. “He still reads magical girl manga.”  
“I did that ironically,” whined Mikey.  
“Nuh-uh.”  
“Uh-huh.”  
“Eh, no judgement. I’ve read that kind of stuff before in my lifetime. We all have.” Gerard smiled and scooted over, Frank watching with vague envy as Scarlett slid into the place he would’ve been sitting, should the whole incident not have happened. He sometimes really hated himself for how impulsive he could be.  
Frank pointed to Ray, with his oversize band t-shirt and army jacket and afro. “’Tis Ray. He’s a senior and a guitar player. He also is going to be burnt out by April.”  
Ray rolled his eyes. “He’s a freshman. He doesn’t even know how weed works.”  
Frank was pretty sure he knew how weed worked. He’d tried it once, and almost passed out. Ray insisted it was because he was inhaling it wrong, but Frank knew better. “That’s Ryan,” he finished, pointing to the boy who was still entirely ignoring the rest of the table. He glanced up for a second and half-smiled.  
“Ray’s got a whole collection of guitar picks. It’s pretty sick. And you should see his room. It’s incredible, like a fuckin’ music heaven,” Gerard told Scarlett with sincere interest, ignoring the subject of Ryan.  
“What’s up, fuckers?” Bob approached from seemingly thin air, eyes half-open in his usual Bob haze and stinking like cigarettes. “What’d I miss?” His eyes fell to the new girl.  
“That’s Scarlett,” Frank piped in again, diplomatically, “she’s a junior and she just transferred here.”  
Bob snorted. “Have fun exploring the land of the jocks.” He sat down on one of the bench seats attached to the picnic table and popped open a can of Coke.  
“What do you have after this?” Gerard craned his neck towards the new girl again. Frank was getting a little irritated watching the older boy give her so much attention. What was so great about this girl? Sure, she was pretty, but most girls around here were. He ran his fingers through black, semi-greasy hair and Frank clenched his fists.  
“Art,” she said thoughtfully.  
“Ah, man, me too,” he was bobbing his head up and down excitedly. “Kepler in Art Room B?”  
“Yeah,” she said, looking pleased. “So I hear you’re into comics?”  
Frank tuned the conversation out from there. It was pissing him off too much. She was supposed to be his new friend, not Gerard’s new potential love interest! He turned back to Mikey, reading his stupid generic superhero book and let out a grunt. He was being needy, he knew, but he needed something to take his mind off the current situation.  
“Mike,” he breathed.  
“What?” He didn’t look up.  
“Miiiiiiiike.”  
“What, Frank?” His voice dropped an octave with slight irritation.  
“What are we doin’ after school?”  
Mikey pushed his glasses further up his nose and shrugged, flipping to another colorful, detailed page. “I thought we decided we were going to watch movies at my house.”  
“Why don’t you come over my house?”  
That broke Mikey from his concentration. He hardly went over to Frank’s house, due to his underwhelming amount of things to do and embarrassingly friendly parents. He paused for a moment before questioning the odd circumstances. “…Why?”  
“Because.” He didn’t want to see Gerard in his pajamas is all, treading around the house only feet away from him, sneaking sidelong glances when he thought he wouldn’t notice. Watching Gerard and Scarlett from the corner of his eyes, he regretted ever introducing himself to her. God, he could be stupid sometimes.  
“I dunno,” Mikey said, losing interest again. “My living room is nicer for watching movies ‘cause there’s surround sound and more space. And Gerard was gonna join us.”  
He could be so oblivious sometimes. There was no point in reasoning with him, so Frank just went back to the food he was idly poking at with a plastic fork.  
“Ohmygod!” The singsong-y voice of Brendon Urie rang throughout the entire courtyard as a skinny, wild-haired brunette boy bounded over to the table. “Guys, you better not have forgotten about seeing me in tonight’s opening performance of Rent! I’m Roger!”  
Frank didn’t know who that was, but judging by how excited he was, he figured it was someone important to the cast. Spencer Smith was close behind him, dressed in his usual all black, his cell phone peeking out of the front pocket of his button-down. Brendon was the theater kid of the group, the one who was cast as the lead in every play. Spencer was the faithful stage manager, and had been since freshman year, when people realized even though he shied on stage, man, that boy could boss people around.  
There was many a reason him and the rest of the guys didn’t bother with theater, the top one for Frank being that he was just too damn scared. He’d do crew if he had the patience, but mopping stage floors and putting away trinkets didn’t really appeal to him much. It was Brendon and Spencer’s thing, and they were best friends because of it. As for the rest of the guys- Gerard sometimes joked about playing Peter Pan in fourth grade, but other than that expressed no interest in participating in theater. Frank tried to imagine Gerard in green tights and almost laughed. Mikey raised an eyebrow. “So I guess our plans for tonight are off. I sort of forgot about Brendon’s show.”  
“Yeah, we promised him we’d go,” Ryan finally said, smiling.  
A wave of relief washed throughout Frank’s body. Gerard nudged New Girl and was about to invite her to come along when Frank stood up to go throw out the remnants of his picked-at lunch. He’d lost his appetite.  
Brendon slid into a free seat and began eating an apple, something he’d recently been doing at lunch as part of some new health kick he was on. He claimed that to be a proper actor, you had to cleanse your mind, body, and soul or… something, by eating only fruits and vegetables. Only a couple months ago he was binging on Cheetos and chocolate milkshakes from the local diner, but everyone knew to keep their thoughts to themselves. Spencer, on the other hand, ripped open a bag of Skittles and began distributing them to all members of the table. He seemed to live off of sugar, but it seemed appropriate, because he was constantly dealing with whatever shit went down backstage during the shows. Sugar seemed like the only viable option to stay alert during the job.  
Ryan at this point had shut his notebook and was sitting off to the side, nodding profusely at anything one of the boys had to say. He was their sophomore tagalong, Brendon being a senior and Spencer a junior. Frank couldn’t help but find it a little pathetic that Ryan wouldn’t interact with anyone unless his beloved tag team was around. In fact, Frank couldn’t help but find his entire friend group pathetic sometimes. He couldn’t complain, though; without them, it was pretty likely he’d be completely friendless throughout his high school career. Frank returned to his friends from the trash can and was about to sit back down when Mikey stopped him.  
“Hey, Frank?” Mikey was stuffing his things into his backpack and looking at his friend with a perplexed expression.  
“Yes?” He tried to play off his attitude as casual and calm.  
“Can I talk to you?”  
“Sure. About what?”  
“Like, talk in private.” Frank knitted his eyebrows together. What could he possibly want to talk about in private? He followed Mikey to a tree a ways off and they went behind it, both checking to make sure nobody was following them.  
“So? There a point to you dragging me behind here and stunting my social growth when I could be over there, socializing and expanding my horizons as a teenager?”  
Mikey glared at him, and Frank smirked, satisfied. He loved pissing Mikey off with his dry attitude.  
“I wanna know why you’ve been acting weird.”  
“Acting weird how?” Frank knew exactly what he was talking about.  
“Since the beginning of the year you’ve been acting weird. You never want to hang out anymore, and you won’t talk to Gerard, and-“  
“Why, has he mentioned that to you? That I haven’t been talking to him?” Frank inquired hopefully, leaning his back against the tree and crossing his arms.  
Mikey shook his head slowly. “I just notice,” he said, carefully forming the words in his head before stopping and beginning again. “You told me everything was okay, back to normal. It’s not, though, is it?”  
“Well-“  
“Gerard’s over what happened, Frank. You need to let it go, too. Gerard just wants to be your friend.”  
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s exactly what I want to be. His friend.” Frank said “friend” with such disgust that he almost convinced himself it was a vulgar word. His heart ached for a moment, knowing how much he’d fucked up. Now he was condemned to friends, and nothing more. The worst part was seeing Gerard all buddy-buddy with this girl he barely knew. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his skinny jeans and looked at his feet. Mikey let out a puff of air from his mouth. He realized what Frank had meant.  
“You’re still in love with him, huh?”  
“Maybe? A little. Happy?”  
The dirty blond boy shook his head slowly and adjusted his glasses. “Why you’re in love with Gerard is beyond me. But Frank?”  
“Yes?”  
“I hate to be an asshole, but you need to get the fuck over it. He’s moving on.” 

* 

Gerard wasn’t exactly anyone’s “dream guy.”  
Sure, he was a good artist and had great taste in music, if he was being honest. But at school, nobody cared about going out with someone with cool interests or impressive talents. They cared about going out with someone with good looks and ever-increasing popularity. Those things didn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, though- there were some ugly-ass guys who got tons of girls just because they were on the football team.  
Gerard had to face it. He wasn’t popular, and his looks were definitely not getting him anywhere. He was greasy-haired, awkward, short, and, undeniably, fat. Who the hell would want to go out with Fat-Ass Way (a nickname he had been eloquently dubbed freshman year)?  
Well, he had been fat at one point. Over the summer before junior year, he’d lost weight. Not that anyone would notice, since most of the time he covered his figure with oversize jackets and baggy band t-shirts. Still, though, he thought maybe puberty had been kind to him, but it didn’t mean he was getting any attention.  
He had always counted for high school to be the time he lost his virginity. Now, a junior, he was nearly seventeen and his cherry was still very much un-popped. It was a little sad, when he thought about it. He’d dated people-  
-Frank.  
-before, But they had never been real-  
-Frank.  
-relationships. Well, besides…  
He stopped himself mid-thought. He didn’t want to go into the tender thought process of thinking about the younger boy he had kind of sort of left heartbroken.  
It wasn’t his fault, really. He’d been confused, unsure of himself. Either way, Frank had been upset, and very angry. There were things that had been said that could never be fixed. He decided there was no use trying to mend things, and the right course of action was just ignoring the issue altogether.  
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He was driving his beat-up Jeep, a birthday gift for his sixteenth birthday, with Mikey in the passenger seat, home from school. Mikey was fiddling with the buttons, and his finger jabbed at one of them recklessly. His Iron Maiden CD stopped abruptly, the disc popping out from its slot. Gerard glared at his brother, taking his eyes off the road momentarily. “Put my CD back in.”  
“Uh, no.”  
“Uh, yeah. It’s my car, dumbass.”  
“I have a headache.”  
“Too bad.”  
“So, how’s Scarlett?” Mikey asked suddenly, and Gerard raised an eyebrow to play off the fact that he had suddenly went red in the face. He pretended to think for a few seconds.  
“The girl I met at lunch today?”  
“Mhm. How is she?”  
“She’s nice,” he said distractedly, sliding the CD back into its slot rather aggressively. “She likes the same comics as me. Why’d you invite her to sit with us? ‘Cause you want a girlfriend who’s a junior?” He turned a corner, side-eying the boy in the seat next to him to watch his reaction.  
“No,” he shot Gerard one of his brotherly fuck-you expressions. “I’m not that desperate. I’m not gonna date someone two grades apart from me.”  
Gerard tightened his mouth and cleared his throat. Suddenly, Mikey remembered. Frank.  
He made an audible noise that sounded a little bit like a choked “oh.” Then he changed the subject. “I invited her to sit with us ‘cause I felt bad no one was talking to her.”  
Gerard thought about her. She definitely fulfilled the “attractive” department, which wasn’t necessarily the most important thing to him, but definitely something he noticed, being a hormonal teenager and all. She had a round baby face just like his, with feminine brown eyes and dark hair. She was probably a little overweight, but he tended to like girls a little bigger.  
She was also smart, and knew shit about comics- he felt his face flushing even deeper with each thought that popped into his head about her. It wasn’t that he liked her, it was just that she was so similar to him, and that was something that was hard to ignore in a person.  
“Why didn’t Frank hang out today?” He blurted it all of a sudden, and wanted to punch himself the minute the words escaped his lips. What made him think that was a good idea to say? How had he even come to think about Frank when they were on the topic of somebody entirely different? Even though it was only Mikey, he didn’t want his brother thinking he still liked him or anything. He was done with Frank, for good- well, as done as he could let himself be- and he couldn’t have anyone thinking he wanted to get back together with him or anything. “I- uh, because he usually comes over after, uh, class.”  
He was met with a blank, if not confused expression. “I dunno. ‘Cause we had plans to watch movies and there’s no point in watching movies if we have Brendon’s play in a couple of hours.” Gerard pulled into their driveway and stopped the car. He wiped his sweaty palms on the denim suface of his black jeans and brushed his hair behind his ears. Then, “Why?”  
He shrugged.  
Mikey shrugged.  
They both got out of the car, Gerard slamming the door a little louder than necessary. He turned over his shoulder. “I’ll be in my room doing homework. Don’t bother me.”

* 

Ray sifted through a few comic books, bored, before stuffing them back on the cluttered shelves of Comic World a couple blocks away from the school. The place was practically always vacant and filled with cobwebs and dust, and yet he found himself behind the counter nearly every day after school. The same boring comic books filled the shelves with hardly any updates to the selection, and maybe once or twice a week they’d make a sale- usually Gerard, stopping by after school to see if he could find any rare comics. It was a miracle the place was even in business.  
The truth was, the only reason he bothered occupying that shitty corner store was because he was paid eight dollars an hour, which was eight dollars more than he’d be making if he sat around at home. He had nothing better to do, the boss was nice enough, and the job consisted of mostly sitting around flipping through pages or “organizing” the small shelves. There was one other employee who worked there during school hours, but other than that the store was a ghost town. So, while other kids partied and had wild senior years, he spent his sitting in dull, dusty silence. Of course, money meant additions to his drug fund, which was pretty much only weed since he was a softcore kinda guy.  
It also meant that he could pay for a guitar lesson once every couple of weeks, which was something immensely important to him that his parents hardly bothered to help him out with. He loved his parents, but they didn’t really give two shits about his musical passions, and let him do what he wanted as long as he could pay for it.  
Senior year had been shitty to Ray in the month he’d been back. He was already flunking his math class, hated his teachers, and had already been threatened by the principal to revoke his privilege to graduate if he kept cutting gym class. He also didn’t have any means of travel, because he didn’t have enough self control to save his Comic World money for a car (another luxury his parents refused to provide him), not that he’d be able to drive it anyway since he sort-of-kind-of-maybe failed his driver’s test.  
So he was kind of a failure. So what? What he was planning to do after high school had nothing to do with college anyway. He’d start a band where he’d be the lead guitarist, land a few basement gigs, and from there get signed (he was too good not to get signed, right?). Him, Gerard, Mikey, Frank and Bob had played a few songs Gerard wrote and they sounded good, albeit a little shaky due to the fact that none of them were that good at what they played. Besides Ray, obviously, who was a self-proclaimed guitar god.  
The front chimes jingled as somebody walked in the shop. He was hunched over a desk, skimming faded words in a speech bubble, and he tossed it down and stood up straight to greet whoever it was. Before him was a girl with dirty blond hair in two ratty braids, smudged eyeliner, and an army jacket covered in music pins. Underneath the jacket was a dainty floral dress, which seemed like quite the contrast, but it looked good nonetheless. He grinned his typical salesperson grin, which thankfully he only had to use every so often. “Hey, can I help you find anything?”  
“Uh, actually, I’m looking for a job application.” She smiled almost sheepishly, her voice low and raspy. He wondered how she sounded when she sang.  
“Job app?” Why would anyone want to work here? He didn’t let himself ask the second part. “Yeah, I’ll get you one from the back. The boss isn’t here, though.”  
“S’okay. I just wanted one to bring back later. My parents have been on my case to get a job.” Green eyes flashed recognition for a second, and then she pointed almost accusingly at Ray. “You’re in one of my classes, aren’t you?”  
Ray pondered for a second to see if he remembered any girls like this one in his classes. He rarely paid any attention, and really spent most of his class periods jotting chord progressions in his recycled notebook from last year. “Uh, maybe? Which one?”  
“I’m Lila. I’m in your lit class, I’m pretty sure.”  
“Oh!” He pretended to remember her. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen you around. I’m Ray.”  
“Yeah, I know who you are,” she said slowly. “You’re, like, a music legend around here.”  
His face perked at her words. A music legend? He was that good? “Really? People say that?”  
“You were incredible at last year’s open night.”  
He’d performed a couple of rock songs with Gerard at some music event at the school the year before, which he was surprised even existed in the first place what with the school’s obsession with sports and all. He had to admit they sounded pretty solid.  
He headed to the back of the stuffy shop, passing walls that were plastered in old posters and framed copies of the owner’s signed comic collection. In the back room, which was essentially a closet the size of an office cubicle, he grabbed an application from the pile that hadn’t been touched in months and brought it back to her. “Why don’t I know you? If you’re in my grade?”  
“I’m not a senior,” she admitted. “Just smart.”  
He smirked. “Humble.”  
“Oh, please. I’ve overheard you referring to yourself as a ‘rock god’ to your friends.”  
She’d heard him say that? He couldn’t ever recall calling himself that out loud, but he didn’t doubt that was something he might’ve done while stoned. He forgot a lot of things he did after smoking weed, which was a lot. Maybe he needed to cut back a little.  
“I never said that,” he finally said.  
“Whatever you say,” she said, looking over the form he’d just handed her. “How much does this job pay, anyway?”  
“Enough to fulfill my weed stash,” he said dryly. “Which reminds me. I was just about to head out. My shift’s almost over.” It was nearly seven, and Bob was coming to pick him up soon to take him to see Brendon in the show. Theater wasn’t really his thing, but he figured since his friends were so excited about it he might as well just go and humor them.  
“Mind if I join you? I don’t really have anything to do.”  
“Nah, you can hang out if you want.” He picked up his bag from behind the counter and swung it over his shoulder. The owner of the place was lenient, so he could leave whenever he wanted, really, and it was close enough to closing time. “I’m leaving now. I was just about to close up anyway. You wanna go behind the deli?”  
That was where Ray went went he wanted to get high. He figured he needed to be reasonably under the influence before he could endure any sort of musical. He checked his watch. He had fifteen minutes before Bob came by.  
“Sure,” she said.  
They walked together from the front of the store, Ray locking the store behind him and tossing his uniform sweatshirt that sported the Comic World logo into the back room. All he had on now was a Salvation Army top he’d thrifted and a pair of jeans.  
“So I’m assuming you’re going to college for music?”  
“Hopefully.” He turned to her. “What do you want to go to college for?”  
“Who knows. I kinda have no idea what I’m interested in right now.”  
They approached the small delicatessen and tread the hidden shortcut to the confined area kids always occupied when they smoked near the high school. It was private and hardly known by the general public- a stoner’s heaven. When they arrived, the place was was empty. He first examined his surroundings- weeds escaped through cracked cement on the ground where cigarette butts were littered in copious amounts. He lowered himself down to the pavement and sat against the brick wall, his knees propped up as a shelf to support him as he rolled a joint. Lila remained standing, not bothering to sit down on the dirty floor, and he didn’t say anything. He got out his necessary ingredients and did his standard routine. He licked the edges of the rolling paper and stuck them together, finishing, and tossed his stash and papers back into the depths of his bag, not bothering to hide them. His parents would never look there, and he doubted they’d care he smoked even if they found out.  
He held the tip of his formation to the flame of his favorite abstract-print lighter, watching as white faded into a seared, harsh black. He had to keep his hand cupped around the end or else the light wouldn’t work, since the evening chill of early fall continuously blew against the flame and made it die down every time. Halfway into taking a hit, he realized he was being impolite. “You want?” He reached his hand out, two fingers gripping the smoldering papers lazily. Lila just stared back, amused.  
“Nah, no thanks. I quit weed last year when I realized I was starting to burn out.”  
“Hm. Wish I had that kind of will power.” He exhaled, letting white smoke coil from the sides of his mouth and his nostrils. These days, he hardly thought twice about his eyes looking red around the edges or his clothes smelling like cannabis. If he showed up somewhere blatantly high, then so be it, he decided. It wasn’t like he cared what people thought about him, anyway, unless it had to do with his musical abilities.  
“Have any plans for tonight?”  
“Yeah,” he said, bored. “I’m heading to see Rent with some of my friends. Brendon Urie is in it, and it’s important to him that we see it and shit.”  
“That’s nice of you.” She said this sincerely, with her lips curved up just slightly at the side. “I think Brendon’s a great actor.”  
“I can’t really tell. I’ll assume he is, since he plays all the big parts.”  
His phone buzzed from his back pocket, and he slid it out and pressed the device to his ear. In his usual raspy tone he spoke.  
“Hello?”  
“Where the fuck are you, dumbass?” It was Bob.  
“Behind the deli.”  
He could hear muffled talking in the background, voices that belonged to who he assumed were his friends. “Dude, I told you we’d get you at Comic World.”  
“Sorry,” he said, grimacing. He hated when Bob was upset with him. Bob was his best friend, but he got angry easily and wouldn’t hold back if he was pissed off. “Just get me at the deli, okay?”  
An irritated grumbling on the other end, and then static. He jammed his phone back into his pocket and turned to Lila. “I, uh, have to go.”  
“‘Kay,” she said, holding out her hand. “Why don’t I give you my number?”  
“Sure,” he said, handing her his phone and letting her put the contact information in. He wasn't sure why she was being so friendly to him. Most girls were creeped out by his…unique appearance, not asking for his number and requesting they hang out behind the freaking deli, the sketchiest place in town.  
“You need a ride or something?” He hoped she’d say no, because Bob sure as fuck would be pissed if he brought a random tagalong into the car. He’d probably refer to her as “just another waste of gas”, right there in front of her, not sparing any of the insulting details. He tended to go on little rants like that, and a lot of times they could be nasty.  
“Oh, no, I’ll be fine. Thanks, though.” She batted her eyelashes at him steadily, only driving him into a deeper confusion than he had been in earlier.  
“No problem.” There was the sound of a car horn outside the deli, loud and erratic, and he knew it could be no one but Bob. He offered a timid wave, finished his joint, and headed around to the front. He slipped into the back of the car, which was huge, due to him driving his mom’s minivan, a car that seemed inappropriate for a guy like Bob. Gerard, Mikey, Frank and the new girl Scarlett were reclined across the seats, pounding rock music blaring from the speakers. He slammed the door shut behind him, not bothering to buckle his seatbelt, and Bob drove off without another word.  
“You all owe me serious gas money,” he griped. “Especially if I’m taking you home after the diner tonight.”  
Diner? Oh, right. He’d forgotten. The group always took the boys in the shows out to dinner at the Killjoy diner, which had admittedly delicious food. He couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed at the tradition.  
“Let’s fuckin’ go,” he said excitedly, loudly enough to break whatever sort of nerdy conversation Gerard was invested in with the new girl. Frank turned his head to him from the very back row of seats, where the freshmen had been condemned to, and then narrowed his eyes.  
“You’re high.”  
“When aren’t I?” He said this matter-of-factly, so as to piss Frank off. He had something up his ass about his smoking. “Where’s Ryan?”  
“Ryan is ushering for the show,” Mikey told him. “So he can be closer to the love of his life, Brendon.”  
Gerard scrunched up his face in thought at the statement. “You think Ryan likes Brendon? Of all people?”  
“What’s wrong with Brendon?” Bob asked teasingly from the front seat. It was the most cheerful anyone had seen him since the beginning of the car ride.  
“Nothing, really,” Gerard said. “I’m just thinkin’ Ryan digs Spencer better.”  
“Maybe he has a crush on both,” said Mikey. “He tags around them pretty equally.”  
“Then he’d have to convert to mormonism if he wanted to date both of them,” interjected Frank. “And we all know Ryan would never be able to handle being a mormon.”  
“True,” everyone agreed noncommittally.  
Since autumn was just beginning, the sun had dipped below the horizon already despite it not even being seven-thirty. The show was at eight but they wanted to arrive before all the good seats got taken, so they could take optimal blackmail videos of Brendon as he acted just in case.  
Ray waited for a lull in the conversation, and then took advantage of the opportunity.  
“I met a girl,” he said casually. “She gave me her number.”  
“You?” Bob said with mock disgust from the front seat.  
“One more girl asking for my number than you,” murmured Ray.  
“Oh,” said Gerard, with little interest. “Where’d you meet her?”  
“The comic shop. She asked for a job application and then hung out with me after my shift got off.”  
“Are you kidding me?” Mikey muttered from the back row. “Ray is getting girls but I’m not?”  
“They’re attracted to his guitar-playing charm,” Gerard said, turning over his shoulder. “Girls love guys who play guitar.”  
“It’s ‘cause they can do so much with their hands,” Frank said, an obnoxious smirk on his face at his own joke.  
“Yeah, like this,” Ray said, reaching his hand behind him and smacking the boy in the head without looking at his target.  
“Please,” said Bob, not turning around, “Girls like drummers even more. ‘Cause they can hit it so well.”  
“I think I just threw up in my mouth,” Gerard said.  
“-Anyway,” Ray said irritably. “Said girl is not interested in me.”  
“I swear, if you get a girlfriend-“  
“-Mikey, you are a freshman and I am a senior and I’ve only had one girlfriend in my entire high school career and you have four years ahead of you so shut the fuck up.”  
Ray’s only girlfriend was some random girl he met in his sophomore year chem class. She sorta only dated him to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, though, so the relationship didn’t even count. He deemed himself rightfully pathetic. Mikey was a good looking kid, so he didn’t doubt he’d find someone pretty fast. Ray, on the other hand, was not exactly the spitting image of “hot”. Talented? Yeah. Smart? Maybe. Attractive? Definitely not.  
“I’ve never had a girlfriend, either,” Frank said to Mikey sympathetically.  
Mikey huffed. “Yeah, but you’re gay.”  
“Oh. Right.”  
Ray hated his friends sometimes.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is going to be constantly switching POV's of characters, as you might have been able to tell, since I want to make everyone important and have everyone have an interesting story line.


End file.
